Dotan Saguy was born in a small kibbutz five miles south of Israel’s Lebanese border. Dotan grew-up in a diverse working class Parisian suburb, lived in Lower Manhattan during 9/11 and moved to Los Angeles in 2003.

In 2015 Dotan decided to focus on his lifelong passion for photography after a successful career as a high-tech entrepreneur. Since then Dotan attended the prestigious Eddie Adams Workshop, the Missouri Photo Workshop and studied photojournalism at Santa Monica College.

Dotan's award winning photographs have been published by National Geographic, The Guardian, The Los Angeles Times and many others.

In 2018 Dotan published his first monograph about the endangered culture of Venice Beach, CA with German publisher Kehrer Verlag, which was awarded Bronze by the prestigious Deutscher Fotobuchpreis 2018-19.

The Corsair, Weekly Print and Online Newspaper of Santa Monica College: many publications from September 2015 to November 2015

Gear

Dotan gets asked often about gear. He'd rather talk about photography but here's a quick rundown to get the topic covered:

Cameras: Dotan's black and white work is shot using the Leica Monochrom in beautiful native black and white. His color work is shot with a Leica M (typ 240 and M10). Dotan favors Leica rangefinders for their simplicity and the predictability of their fully manual mode of operation.

Lenses: Dotan shoots exclusively with a 35mm prime lens. Why only one focal length? He finds that limiting his choice of focal length enables him to pre-visualize compositions better.